A recent graduate from Harvard College with a degree in Environmental Science and Public Policy, I am looking to use my knowledge of and passion for energy and sustainability to write about innovators in those fields. Having spent the last four years covering Cambridge for The Harvard Crimson, I have a soft spot for Boston-area startups. I hail from suburban western Massachusetts but have a love for metropolitan life. I previously wrote for Money, The New London Day, and The Hartford Courant.

Socialist, An App For The List Obsessed To Create And Share Favorites

Millennials live and breathe lists. We spend hours every day on Buzzfeed reading about the best burger joints and cat videos, but the reality is we all have our own opinions, our own rankings. Now, there’s an easy and attractive way to share and act on them.

Socialist (yes, the founder knows) is an app, built only for iOS 7 for now, that allows iPhone users to create and consume lists of places, movies, music, or anything really. You can follow other users and collaborate on lists, and share them via messaging and on a public newsfeed.

Cofounder and CEO Paul Geller recalled conceiving of the idea while on a date with a woman who liked the same film director as him but not the same movies. “Wouldn’t it be great if we could collaborate on a list together?” he had said. Of course, he could have used the old-fashioned pen and paper method or an existing cloud-based, collaborative software, but Geller saw potential in a new simple and elegant platform within a social network.

Socialist, a new app for building lists of places, movies, and music, allows easy syncing with Foursquare’s lists feature.

So in 2012 he teamed up with John Ashenden, who had been a colleague at Grooveshark and led the music streaming site’s redesign, and a few other friends in app development to create Socialist. A simple user interface was one of the main priorities. Users login with Facebook or Twitter or create a separate account and then can immediately start making lists by tapping New. You assign it a name and can beautify it with a cover photo. Then you can start adding by searching for items under four categories: Place, Music, Film, and Something Else.

What sets Socialist apart and ensures usefulness are the item pages that integrate information from popular third party apps. With places, you’ll see the address, hours, and Yelp rating, and then can go directly to Apple or Google Maps. For movies, you’re a click away from watching it on Netflix, downloading it on iTunes, or buying tickets on Fandango. The app isn’t smart enough yet to prioritize tickets if it’s still out in theaters but Geller said to expect that function to come. The page also includes the trailer and other information from IMDB. For music, you can stream from Rdio, Spotify, and Grooveshark or buy songs from Amazon or iTunes.

That’s one way the app is generating revenue. By affiliate marketing, the founders receive a dividend of sales made through Socialist. They’ve also partnered with Vice, Complex, Milk, and the New York Times who will generate featured content and plan to develop more content partners at a regional and international scale. While the developers paid all development costs out of pocket, they found a way to monetize Socialist at launch in a way that doesn’t seem to jeopardize the user experience.

And so far users are onboard. Currently, Socialist has about 2500 users and is gaining about 200 a day. On launch day July 22, about 1000 lists were generated, Geller said. The app functions nationally and internationally, with about 90 percent currently based in the United States. One function of the app is catered content to your region, so the lists can function as handy guides. A favorite of mine would be a list of NYC coffee shops with wifi and outlets. Geller, with the help of some friends, also created a list of top NYC rooftops. Looking to hit them all? You can swipe right to check off or add them to your own list. And like Yelp you can add your own photos and comments.

The social network and sharing aspects diversify Socialist from the many task management apps out there. Social is in the name. That’s gotten Geller a lot of attention from hate tweets to conspiracy theories.

“It’s a pun,” Geller assured. “It’s supposed to be fun.”

Well, it could have been Geller’s first thought: Commulist.

Geller admitted to some bugs in the app, which his team will be working on eliminating and creating other improvements each week. But for now, it’s all about engagement, so obsessively list away.

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